The invention relates to vacuum cleaners, and more specifically to a self-propelled vacuum cleaner that is convertible from an upright mode to a portable mode.
Handle manipulated self-mobilized wheeled appliances such as vacuum cleaners, sweepers, lawn mowers and carts are well known. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,618,687 to Ripple et al., 4,249,281 to Meyer et al., 4,347,643 to Bair III and 4,434,865 to Tschudy et al., for example, illustrate transmissions for vacuum cleaners.
Known drive systems for these and like appliances can have one or more disadvantages of limited power capacity, inadequate speed ranges, low durability, noisy operation, limited speed reduction ratio necessitating relatively small traction wheels, expensive componentry and/or non-uniform response and power application.